Remember when the RIAA started going on its anti-filesharing rampage, under the guise of "protecting the artists"? It turns out, they're finally admitting they're really looking out for the record companies:
As quoted by The Hollywood Reporter,"Mechanical royalties currently are out of whack with historical and international rates," RIAA executive VP and General Counsel Steven Marks said. "We hope the judges will restore the proper balance by reducing the rate and moving to a more flexible percentage rate structure so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers."
The language of this statement reveals a great deal about who the RIAA is looking out for, and it's not artists. Couched in terms of apparent necessity, the RIAA's is insisting that the real musicians be paid less so that the record companies can continue to "drive revenues." If piracy really is devastating the recording industry and cell phone ringtones are one of the remaining highly profitable distributed mediums, should the RIAA really be trying to ensure that musicians be paid less for them while they're already hurting from lost revenue on album sales? At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they're down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place.
I wonder, has any of the money from the RIAA lawsuits actually trickled down to the artists yet?
One Comment
Actually, they are talking about mechanical royalties here. These are the royalties paid to the Songwriter(s) ... NOT the artist(s)
Mechanical royalties go up every year, whereas artist royalties are paid according to the artist's contract with the record company, and are fixed in advance (usually around 6%)
So, on average, the songwriter makes more from the sale of a record than the artist does.